Author Dennis Meadows, from a recent PBS American Experience program called Earth Days:

We’ve been on this planet for several hundred thousands of years, and during most of that time, anybody who looked far into the future didn’t have much survival value. I mean, if you’re in the midst of a battle with a mammoth or something, you don’t sit there and say, “Well, let’s think about three years from now;” you run.

And so, for a long period of time, the advantage went to those who focused on the immediate situation. And, I think, as a consequence of that, now that we are faced with issues which will really unfold over centuries, we’re genetically and institutionally ill-adapted for it.

Web cartoonist Francesco Marciuliano shows us where short-term thinking will lead. (Click the image to see the whole cartoon, which is funnier and scarier than this little excerpt.)

Senate Republicans, united in opposition to the Democrats’ legislation to tighten regulation of the financial system, voted on Monday to block the bill from reaching the floor for debate.

They weren’t voting against the bill. No, they were voting against even starting debate on a financial reform bill. The argument seems to be that, since government is imperfect, it should not be allowed to set rules for the folks who nearly wrecked the economy.

All Hat No Cattle has discovered the GOP Healthcare Plan. You know, I thought it was a joke until I came to point five in the plan; then it sounded just like the Republicans. (Click the image to see the whole plan, and when you get there, scroll down and look at some of the other cartoons there. I particularly like the press asking whether Obama’s overexposed, and the quote of Dom Hélder Câmara.)

GOP HEALTH CARE PLAN
The “Stay Well, America” Act

The Republican health care plan is very simple.

If you are sick, something is obviously wrong with you.

If you believe in personal responsibility, then you know that ‘something wrong with you’ is your fault.

Why should the government pay to fix something that is your fault?

The way to put things right again in life is to get right with God. And prayer is free.

Therefore, we demand a tax cut.

Stay well, America.

(I’ve put the text here because it’s only an image at All Hat No Cattle, and wouldn’t show up on a web search.)

Some polls show public support for healthcare reform dropping. I can’t help thinking it’s because Democrats — especially in Congress — are already acting too much like Republicans.

In November, voters elected Barack Obama and gave Democrats large majorities in the House and the Senate. Add one party-switcher named Arlen Specter, and Democrats now have 60 seats in the Senate, a so-called filibuster-proof majority. I don’t believe voters were hoping for the timid, corporate-interests-first policies that too many Congressional Democrats seem to be embracing right now.

Does the Democratic leadership think they’ll finally be strong enough to fix the healthcare mess only after the 2010 midterm elections? Do they imagine they’ll be in a stronger position then, if they can’t manage to get anything done now?

Bill Maher said of Obama, “He is Michael Jordan playing on a bad team. There’s nobody to pass the ball to.”

Congressional Democrats, you were elected to do a job. Stop running scared. Do the job. Do it right. Let the voters judge. The surest way to lose in 2010 is to fail to deliver the change voters demanded in 2008.

Joy of Tech has useful and informative warning labels for bloggers. Some should be printed out and stuck on the blogger’s own monitor, but a few should be prominently displayed on the blog page itself.